RECOFF Streszczenie raportu

Review of and recommendations for external conditions

Scientific aspects of the result: At the project outset, there were many uncertainties regarding the offshore environment for the combined action of wind and waves. Existing standards for offshore purposes have been reviewed and compared in order to provide recommendations relevant for offshore turbines that are subject to wind and waves loads of comparable size.

Social and commercial aspects of the result:There has been an immediate need for the project. Currently and over the next few years, the expansion in offshore wind energy, especially in Europe, accelerates and at project start there were no thorough and coherent guidelines for the design of offshore wind power plants. The existing offshore standards are not suitable to cover the offshore wind energy technology.

A combination of these offshore standards and the existing onshore wind energy standards is a very complex process and significant technology gaps exist. One of the major tasks of the project has been the attempt to combine the practices of wind turbines engineering and offshore engineering. According to the main results stated in the executive summary the project has succeeded in this, and thus it is the view of the project partners that the project outcome has aided a development with the potential of preventing erroneous decision-making on large investments in Europe on a technical weak basis.

Potential applications for and End users of the result:End-users are designers of offshore wind turbines i.e. manufactures, certifying bodies, writers of standards and regulations, and possibly owners and operators of offshore wind farms.